I love the beginning. Here at the 2018 starting line, everything is fresh and possible again. We stand with renewed vigor and resolve – let’s do this thing! We stand with gratitude for all the experiences of 2017 – the good, the bad, and the surprising lessons we learned. We are so grateful to all of YOU for your good words, for caring about this art we’re making, for finding the spark in it that lights your own fire. We really would not – could not – do this without you, our patrons, our fans, our friends, our road family. We wish for you in 2018 all that you desire. Begin. Be brave.

WOW. We’re still reeling from the events of the last 6 weeks, but in a good way. It’s like when your brain is brimming and your heart is humming and you’re vacillating between “can’t sit still” and “too tired to move” and everything is a little too bright and a little too loud and under it all you just feel so so so glad to be home and yet can’t wait to do it all again. That’s how things are today. Read More…

We hope you enjoyed your long, labor day weekend; we sure did. Our good friend Danielle Anderson paid us a visit in Kansas City and we spent a delicious couple of days catching up over cocktails and sharing meals. What a gift it was to spend time with friends from the road right here in our beloved hometown.

Hello friends,
A quick post to say we’re coming to Denver next week for a very special concert PLUS a ukulele workshop for our uke-loving fans. We’ve got new tunes, new stories, and shiny new wedding bands to show you. Come Celebrate!
Cheers, Erin + Jeff

Hello, friendsWe got married!!! The wedding was amazing. Might just be the best day of my life so far. Jeff and I are still processing everything that happened and all the joy, love, and gratitude that filled our wedding weekend. I will write a longer blog when our official photos are done with lots of pictures from the weekend, but I wanted to write a brief note today to say how very, very happy and grateful we are.

I can hardly believe it. After all the planning, waiting, dreaming and anticipating, our wedding weekend is here! We are over the moon and feel So. Incredibly. Ready. to get married! We’re excited for the weekend as friends and family from far and near are gathering in Kansas City to share our day, give their blessing and celebrate with us. The ceremony will be filled with music and readings by some of our dearest friends. We can’t wait for this next chapter of our lives together to begin! I promise we’ll post loads of pictures.

After the wedding, we’ll take a short trip to Chicago to celebrate and just take a deep breath. We look forward to a couple of quiet days to reflect on this new journey and recuperate from the big weekend. We’ll be right back to work the next weekend and then we’re off to summer shows and tours. We plan to take a proper honeymoon to Spain and Portugal next fall. No working on the honeymoon!

We feel incredibly grateful to all of you who have reached out to us via email, text and social media with your good words and well wishes. Your support and encouragement mean the world to us. As I said in my engagement post, a second chance at love is a rare and wonderful thing and we feel grateful every day. Many of you have inquired about a registry – thank you so much for thinking of us!

We’ll be back at it right away with shows, workshops, and tours. We love our work and we are grateful to have created a shared vision that brings us and others joy. We’ll see you all soon and look forward to raising a glass together to Love! Love always wins in the end.

Cheers, Erin (& Jeff)

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Do you feel it? The quickening pulse of Spring? Everything is blooming and I can’t get enough of the open window and the promise aloft on fresh, crisp air.

rise, sun

chirp, bird

blossom, spring

open, heart

strings

sing

We’re feeling energized after a whirlwind trip with the full band to Reno, NV for the 9th Annual Reno Ukulele Festival. What a treat for us to be able to bring our Loose Change Orchestra (LCO) to play for the headline Saturday night concert. It was an honor to perform on the famed Celebrity Showroom at the Sparks Nugget where world-class entertainers have been performing since 1955, and where famously their live-in elephant Bertha stole the show from Geoge Burns nightly. The theater is gorgeous with an old-school Vegas vibe – you’d swear you saw Frank Sinatra tucked away at a deep velvet booth up on the dark mezzanine… Read More…

As Snowstorm Stella hammered the eastern seaboard last month, laying a heavy mantle of wet snow that crippled NYC, we holed up for 3 days outside the Boston area to watch the white pile up from our hotel room. Unfortunately, our much-anticipated show with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks March 14 in New York was canceled because of the relentless weather. We hope to reschedule that appearance as soon as possible. We were grateful that the storm wasn’t worse than it was. Read More…

We’re still basking in the glow of the recent Folk Alliance International (FAI) Conference which took place Feb. 15-19 here in our beloved Kansas City. WOW – what an amazing event! Over 3,000 musicians, music industry pros, and music lovers gathered for a week to network, conduct business, learn new skills and share music, music, music. Highlights included our FAI Official Showcase, meeting one of our songwriting heros, connecting with friends old and new, and hearing music from around the globe that inspired and encouraged. My favorite quote from the weekend was from Billy Bragg’s rousing keynote address, “Cynicism is our greatest enemy.” Read More…